I’m not sure what they might have been saying Saturday evening after Smart shredded Kansas -- at Allen Fieldhouse -- with 25 points, eight offensive rebounds, three assists and five steals, including one on the game’s final play. While all of us who’ve followed college basketball were running through the question of whether Oklahoma State would foul on purpose or allow Kansas to attempt a tying 3-pointer, Smart disarmed the entire argument by reaching out and snatching the ball from Jayhawks senior Elijah Johnson.

Here’s what I do know, though. Another basketball writer equally devoted to analytics, Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, was raving about Smart’s KU performance on his podcast conversation with Seth Davis. Norlander said Smart “might be my favorite player in college hoops now.” No mention at all of the 0-for-5 3-point shooting.

In a couple of hours -- and, in particular, the final 15 minutes of the game -- Smart surged back into the national consciousness and suggested he remains among the most qualified contenders for national player of the year.

Most of the arguments against Smart involve his sometimes on/mostly off accuracy as a perimeter shooter. He is hitting only 42.3 percent from the field and 28.2 percent on 3-pointers. Those numbers are up from when he was dissected by the stat folks, but they’re still not good; he is at 48.8 percent from the field in Big 12 games but only 28.6 on 3-pointers.

Obviously, Smart would be a more effective player if he made more deep shots, but there are so many other things he does to dominate a game it almost doesn’t matter. He impacts nearly every possession, many of them profoundly.

Think of Smart’s search for a better jumpshot as God’s way of keep the game fair for the other children.

DeCourcy: The curious obsession with a “dominant” team seems to be endemic only to college hoops. We don’t hear about it much in hockey or the NFL. In college football, we’re only looking for a couple of teams that are unbeaten (or close) to play one another for the championship. In college basketball, however, we annually arrive in January to a loud chorus bemoaning the absence of a dominant team.

Which, by the way, is true even when there is one. It is amazing how often we discover the alleged existence of a dominant team after the fact, sometimes years later. Kentucky around this time last season had only recently gained the No. 1 ranking and struggled in road games at Tennessee (65-62), Vanderbilt (69-63) and Mississippi State (73-64 but trailed until 4:10 mark). The Vols and Bulldogs weren’t even NCAA Tournament teams. Now, because the Wildcats lost just twice and owned the NCAA Tournament, they are viewed as having been “dominant.”

I read something in the past week along these lines, lamenting the absence of dominant teams — such as Connecticut’s 2004 squad. Yes. A team so dominant it lost six regular-season games, finished second in its conference, earned a No. 2 seed and was shipped to the West Region.

I don’t think there’s a dominant team this season. I know that in the end, however, there’ll be a champion, decided by an NCAA Tournament that most likely will be thrilling after a series of conference tournaments that are a basketball feast following a regular-season climax that figures to be entertaining.

If this season were to lack any of those elements, we might have a problem.

DeCourcy: I’ll admit to having attended only one BracketBusters game during the life of the event: Bucknell at Northern Iowa, February 2006. It was minus-16 outside. Perhaps that’s why I never hit another.

I enjoyed the BracketBusters and am sorry to see ESPN drop it after this season. I never understood the media hatred for the event — the nonsense about how it “hurt” more teams than it “helped.” My argument for great mid-major teams that couldn’t get Duke to play them always has been: Play each other. So this event set it up and was criticized for it.

ESPN hasn’t always been great at picking the best matchups, and sometimes the designation of home and road teams (done for ticket-selling purposes) leads to the “wrong” game being set. For instance, after beating Ohio decisively last weekend, Akron deserves a shot at Belmont, but the Zips were due a home game and the Bobcats were set for the road. That hurts both Akron (which will play North Dakota State) and Belmont; each could have used a better-quality win to boost any at-large chances either might possess.

As it stood, Creighton was the only significant team designated for the road, which is why its assignment always was going to be the headliner. The Gaels of Saint Mary’s won that lottery, so their 6 p.m. game Feb. 23 will be terrific viewing.

DeCourcy: I’m surprised you’re suggesting he hasn’t. McGary leads the nation’s No. 3 team in rebounding, averaging 6.0 even though he has played only 17 minutes per game. In his most obvious showcase to date — at Indiana last weekend — McGary played a season-high 28 minutes, contributed 10 points and seven rebounds and did a nice job of establishing a physical presence inside against the Big Ten’s best inside tandem, Cody Zeller and Christian Watford.

There is better basketball inside him, though.

Michigan coach John Beilein still has not encouraged him to be a jumpshooter; he has not taken a 3-pointer even though he has that kind of range. Indiana used this against the Wolverines in Saturday’s game by dropping Zeller into the center of the lane when McGary set ball screens. That cut off driving lanes to the basket for the ballhandler — most often star point guard Trey Burke -- and effectively forced the Wolverines to restart their set. If McGary were to move into a pick-and-pop position, the defense would have to deal with that.

McGary made a significant step forward last weekend, as did young Arizona bigs Kaleb Tarczewski and Brandon Ashley. It’s the time of year when coaches start claiming freshmen “are no longer freshmen.”

DeCourcy: Even if the Orange had him, there’s no guarantee he’d be knocking down shots. Before he was ruled out Jan. 12, Southerland had gone 7-of-31 from 3-point range over his previous half-dozen games. We all saw what he did against Arkansas, but if you remove that 9-of-13 game he was a 32-percent long distance shooter.

Would you rather have that, or Jerami Grant?

Before Southerland went out, Grant was headed toward a Michael Carter-Williams-style freshman season. You know, when the initials weren't MCW but DNP. In Southerland’s absence, Grant is averaging 28 minutes, 9.8 points, 5.5 rebounds and about two “no-he-didn’t” plays per game.

It would be nice for Syracuse, Southerland and those of us who love college basketball to see him back on the floor as soon as possible and for the remainder of the season. The Orange didn’t lose two road games because he was missing, though. They lost because it’s hard to win road games in the Big East.